The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Ii Part 52

I think this is all my poor stock of intelligence. By-the-bye, on the last Sunday in the old year, I lost my old year's pocket-book, "which,"

as Mr. Pepys would add, "do trouble me mightily." Give me Katie's new address; I haven't got it.

[Sidenote: Miss d.i.c.kens.]

PHILADELPHIA, _Monday, Jan. 13th, 1868._

I write you this note, a day later than your aunt's, not because I have anything to add to the little I have told her, but because you may like to have it.

We arrived here last night towards twelve o'clock, more than an hour after our time. This is one of the immense American hotels (it is called the Continental); but I find myself just as quiet here as elsewhere.

Everything is very good indeed, the waiter is German, and the greater part of the house servants seem to be coloured people. The town is very clean, and the day as blue and bright as a fine Italian day. But it freezes very hard. All the tickets being sold here for six nights (three visits of two nights each), the suite complain of want of excitement already, having been here ten hours! Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams, with a couple of servants, and a pretty little child-daughter, were in the train each night, and I talked with them a good deal. They are reported to have made an enormous fortune by acting among the Californian gold-diggers. My cold is no better, for the cars are so intolerably hot, that I was often obliged to go and stand upon the break outside, and then the frosty air was biting indeed. The great man of this place is one Mr. Childs, a newspaper proprietor, and he is so exactly like Mr.

Esse in all conceivable respects except being an inch or so taller, that I was quite confounded when I saw him waiting for me at the station (always called depot here) with his carriage. During the last two or three days, Dolby and I have been making up accounts, which are excellently kept by Mr. Osgood, and I find them amazing, quite, in their results.

I was very much interested in the home accounts of Christmas Day. I think I have already mentioned that we were in very low spirits on that day. I began to be unwell with my cold that morning, and a long day's travel did not mend the matter. We scarcely spoke (except when we ate our lunch), and sat dolefully staring out of window. I had a few affectionate words from Chorley, dated from my room, on Christmas morning, and will write him, probably by this mail, a brief acknowledgment. I find it necessary (so oppressed am I with this American catarrh, as they call it) to dine at three o'clock instead of four, that I may have more time to get voice, so that the days are cut short, and letter-writing is not easy.

My best love to Katie, and to Charley, and to our Charley, and to all friends. If I could only get to the point of being able to hold my head up and dispense with my pocket-handkerchief for five minutes, I should be all right.

[Sidenote: Mr. Charles d.i.c.kens.]

WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK, _Wednesday, Jan. 15th, 1868._

MY DEAR CHARLEY,

Finding your letter here this afternoon on my return from Philadelphia (where I have been reading two nights), I take advantage of a spare half-hour in which to answer it at once, though it will not leave here until Sat.u.r.day. I had previously heard of the play, and had _The Times_.

It was a great relief and delight to me, for I had no confidence in its success; being reduced to the confines of despair by its length. If I could have rehea.r.s.ed it, I should have taken the best part of an hour out of it. Fechter must be very fine, and I should greatly like to see him play the part.

I have not been very well generally, and am oppressed (and I begin to think that I probably shall be until I leave) by a true American cold, which I hope, for the comfort of human nature, may be peculiar to only one of the four quarters of the world. The work, too, is very severe.

But I am going on at the same tremendous rate everywhere. The staff, too, has had to be enlarged. Dolby was at Baltimore yesterday, is at Washington to-day, and will come back in the night, and start away again on Friday. We find it absolutely necessary for him to go on ahead. We have not printed or posted a single bill here, and have just sold ninety pounds' worth of paper we had got ready for bills. In such a rush a short newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nt is all we want. "Doctor Marigold" made a great hit here, and is looked forward to at Boston with especial interest. I go to Boston for another fortnight, on end, the 24th of February. The railway journeys distress me greatly. I get out into the open air (upon the break), and it snows and blows, and the train b.u.mps, and the steam flies at me, until I am driven in again.

I have finished here (except four farewell nights in April), and begin four nights at Brooklyn, on the opposite side of the river, to-night; and thus oscillate between Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and then cut into New England, and so work my way back to Boston for a fortnight, after which come Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit and Cleveland, and Buffalo, and then Philadelphia, Boston, and New York farewells. I will not pa.s.s my original bound of eighty-four readings in all. My mind was made up as to that long ago. It will be quite enough. Chicago is some fifteen hundred miles from here. What with travelling, and getting ready for reading, and reading, the days are pretty fully occupied. Not the less so because I rest very indifferently at night.

The people are exceedingly kind and considerate, and desire to be most hospitable besides. But I cannot accept hospitality, and never go out, except at Boston, or I should not be fit for the labour. If Dolby holds out well to the last it will be a triumph, for he has to see everybody, drink with everybody, sell all the tickets, take all the blame, and go beforehand to all the places on the list. I shall not see him after to-night for ten days or a fortnight, and he will be perpetually on the road during the interval. When he leaves me, Osgood, a partner in Ticknor and Fields' publishing firm, mounts guard over me, and has to go into the hall from the platform door every night, and see how the public are seating themselves. It is very odd to see how hard he finds it to look a couple of thousand people in the face, on which head, by-the-bye, I notice the papers to take "Mr. d.i.c.kens's extraordinary composure"

(their great phrase) rather ill, and on the whole to imply that it would be taken as a suitable compliment if I would stagger on to the platform and instantly drop, overpowered by the spectacle before me.

Dinner is announced (by Scott, with a stiff neck and a sore throat), and I must break off with love to Bessie and the incipient Wenerableses. You will be glad to hear of your distinguished parent that Philadelphia has discovered that "he is not like the descriptions we have read of him at the little red desk. He is not at all foppish in appearance. He wears a heavy moustache and a Vand.y.k.e beard, and looks like a well-to-do Philadelphian gentleman."

Ever, my dear Charley, your affectionate Father.

P.S.--Your paper is remarkably good. There is not the least doubt that you can write constantly for A. Y. R. I am very pleased with it.

[Sidenote: Miss d.i.c.kens.]

WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, _Friday, Jan, 18th, 1868._

This will be but a very short report, as I must get out for a little exercise before dinner.

My "true American catarrh" (the people seem to have a national pride in it) sticks to me, but I am otherwise well. I began my church readings last night, and it was very odd to see the pews crammed full of people, all in a broad roar at the "Carol" and "Trial."

Best love to all. I have written Charley a few lines by this mail, and also Chorley.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, _Tuesday, Jan. 21st, 1868._

I finished my church to-night. It is Mrs. Stowe's brother's, and a most wonderful place to speak in. We had it enormously full last night ("Marigold" and "Trial"), but it scarcely required an effort. Mr. Ward Beecher (Mrs. Stowe's brother's name) being present in his pew. I sent to invite him to come round before he left; and I found him to be an unostentatious, straightforward, and agreeable fellow.

My cold sticks to me, and I can scarcely exaggerate what I sometimes undergo from sleeplessness. The day before yesterday I could get no rest until morning, and could not get up before twelve. This morning the same. I rarely take any breakfast but an egg and a cup of tea, not even toast or bread-and-b.u.t.ter. My dinner at three, and a little quail or some such light thing when I come home at night, is my daily fare. At the Hall I have established the custom of taking an egg beaten up in sherry before going in, and another between the parts. I think that pulls me up; at all events, I have since had no return of faintness.

As the men work very hard, and always with their hearts cheerfully in the business, I cram them into and outside of the carriage, to bring them back from Brooklyn with me. The other night, Scott (with a portmanteau across his knees and a wideawake hat low down upon his nose) told me that he had presented himself for admission in the circus (as good as Franconi's, by-the-bye), and had been refused. "The only theayter," he said in a melancholy way, "as I was ever in my life turned from the door of." Says Kelly: "There must have been some mistake, Scott, because George and me went, and we said, 'Mr. d.i.c.kens's staff,'

and they pa.s.sed us to the best seats in the house. Go again, Scott."

"No, I thank you, Kelly," says Scott, more melancholy than before, "I'm not a-going to put myself in the position of being refused again. It's the only theayter as I was ever turned from the door of, and it shan't be done twice. But it's a beastly country!" "Scott," interposed Majesty, "don't you express your opinions about the country." "No, sir," says Scott, "I never do, please, sir, but when you are turned from the door of the only theayter you was ever turned from, sir, and when the beasts in railway cars spits tobacco over your boots, you (privately) find yourself in a beastly country."

I expect shortly to get myself snowed up on some railway or other, for it is snowing hard now, and I begin to move to-morrow. There is so much floating ice in the river that we are obliged to leave a pretty wide margin of time for getting over the ferry to read. The dinner is coming in, and I must leave off.

[Sidenote: Miss d.i.c.kens.]

PHILADELPHIA, _Thursday, Jan. 23rd, 1868._

When I wrote to your aunt by the last mail, I accidentally omitted to touch upon the question of helping Anne. So I will begin in this present writing with reference to her sad position. I think it will be best for you to be guided by an exact knowledge of her _wants_. Try to ascertain from herself what means she has, whether her sick husband gets what he ought to have, whether she is pinched in the articles of necessary clothing, bedding, or the like of that; add to this intelligence your own observation of the state of things about her, and supply what she most wants, and help her where you find the greatest need. The question, in the case of so old and faithful a servant, is not one of so much or so little money on my side, but how _most efficiently_ to ease her mind and help _her_. To do this at once kindly and sensibly is the only consideration by which you have to be guided. Take _carte blanche_ from me for all the rest.

My Washington week is the first week in February, beginning on Monday, 3rd. The tickets are sold, and the President is coming, and the chief members of the Cabinet, and the leaders of parties, and so forth, are coming; and, as the Holly Tree Boots says: "That's where it is, don't you see!"

In my Washington doubts I recalled Dolby for conference, and he joined me yesterday afternoon, and we have been in great discussion ever since on the possibility of giving up the Far West, and avoiding such immense distances and fatigues as would be involved in travelling to Chicago and Cincinnati. We have sketched another tour for the last half of March, which would be infinitely easier for me, though on the other hand less profitable, the places and the halls being smaller. The worst of it is, that everybody one advises with has a monomania respecting Chicago.

"Good heaven, sir," the great Philadelphian authority said to me this morning, "if you don't read in Chicago, the people will go into fits."

In reference to fatigue, I answered: "Well, I would rather they went into fits than I did." But he didn't seem to see it at all. ---- alone constantly writes me: "Don't go to the West; you can get what you want so much more easily." How we shall finally decide, I don't yet know. My Brooklyn church has been an immense success, and I found its minister was a bachelor, a clever, unparsonic, and straightforward man, and a man with a good knowledge of art into the bargain.

We are not a bit too soon here, for the whole country is beginning to be stirred and shaken by the presidential election, and trade is exceedingly depressed, and will be more so. f.a.n.n.y Kemble lives near this place, but had gone away a day before my first visit here. _She_ is going to read in February or March. Du Chaillu has been lecturing out West about the gorilla, and has been to see me; I saw the Cunard steamer _Persia_ out in the stream, yesterday, beautifully smart, her flags flying, all her steam up, and she only waiting for her mails to slip away. She gave me a horrible touch of home-sickness.

When the 1st of March arrives, and I can say "next month," I shall begin to grow brighter. A fortnight's reading in Boston, too (last week of February and first week of March), will help me on gaily, I hope (the work so far off tells). It is impossible for the people to be more affectionately attached to a third, I really believe, than Fields and his wife are to me; and they are a landmark in the prospect.

Dolby sends kindest regards, and wishes it to be known that he has not been bullied lately. We do _not_ go West at all, but take the easier plan.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

BALTIMORE, _Wednesday, Jan. 29th, 1868._

As I have an hour to spare, before starting to Philadelphia, I begin my letter this morning. It has been snowing hard for four-and-twenty hours, though this place is as far south as Valentia in Spain; and Dolby, being on his way to New York, has a good chance of being snowed up somewhere.

They are a bright responsive people here, and very pleasant to read to.

I have rarely seen so many fine faces in an audience. I read here in a charming little opera-house built by a society of Germans, quite a delightful place for the purpose. I stand on the stage, with a drop curtain down, and my screen before it. The whole scene is very pretty and complete, and the audience have a "ring" in them that sounds in the ear. I go from here to Philadelphia to read to-morrow night and Friday, come through here again on Sat.u.r.day on my way to Washington, come back here on Sat.u.r.day week for two finishing nights, then go to Philadelphia for two farewells, and so turn my back on the southern part of the country. Distances and travelling have obliged us to reduce the list of readings by two, leaving eighty-two in all. Of course we afterwards discovered that we had finally settled the list on a Friday! I shall be halfway through it at Washington, of course, on a Friday also, and my birthday!

Dolby and Osgood, who do the most ridiculous things to keep me in spirits (I am often very heavy, and rarely sleep much), have decided to have a walking-match at Boston, on Sat.u.r.day, February 29th. Beginning this design in joke, they have become tremendously in earnest, and Dolby has actually sent home (much to his opponent's terror) for a pair of seamless socks to walk in. Our men are hugely excited on the subject, and continually make bets on "the men." Fields and I are to walk out six miles, and "the men" are to turn and walk round us. Neither of them has the least idea what twelve miles at a pace is. Being requested by both to give them "a breather" yesterday, I gave them a stiff one of five miles over a bad road in the snow, half the distance uphill. I took them at a pace of four miles and a half an hour, and you never beheld such objects as they were when we got back; both smoking like factories, and both obliged to change everything before they could come to dinner. They have the absurdest ideas of what are tests of walking power, and continually get up in the maddest manner and see _how high they can kick_ the wall! The wainscot here, in one place, is scored all over with their pencil-marks. To see them doing this--Dolby, a big man, and Osgood, a very little one, is ridiculous beyond description.